-
Chapter 3 Morphological Structure of
English Words
We
have
discussed
the
historical,
cultural
and
social
factors
that
facilitate
(
使……容易；推动
)
the
development
of
the
English
vocabulary. Borrowing, as we see, has
been playing an active role in
the
expansion of vocabulary. In modern times, however,
vocabulary
is
mainly
enlarged
on
an
internal
basis.
That
is,
we
use
word-building
material
available in
English to
create new
words.
But
before
we
discuss
the
actual
ways
and
means
to
make
new
words, we need to have a
clear picture of the structure of English
words and their components
(
成分
)
—
word-forming elements. This
chapter will discuss morphemes
(
语素；
词素
)
< br>, their classification
(
分<
/p>
类
)
and identificat
ion
(
辨别
)
, the relationship between morphemes
and word-formation
(
构词法
)
.
3.1
Morphemes
Traditionally,
words
are
usually
treated
as
the
basic
and
minimal
units of a language to make sentences,
which are combinations of
words
according
to
syntactic
rules
(<
/p>
句
法
规
则
)
.
Structurally,
however, a word is not the smallest
unit because many words can
be
separated
into
even
smaller
meaningful
units.
Take
decontextualization
for
example.
This
is
one
word,
but
can
be
broken down into
de-
,
con-
,
text
, -a/ ,
-iz(e)
,
-ation
, each having
meaning
of
its
own.
These
segments
(
部分
)
cannot
be
further
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divided; otherwise, none of them would
make any sense. Though
-ation
has
a
number
of
variants
(
变体
)
such
as
-tion
,
-sion
,
-ion
,
they belong
to the same suffix as they have the same meaning
and
grammatical
function
and
occur owing
to
(
因为；根据
)
different
sound environment.
These minimal meaningful units are known as
morphemes
(morphe
is
the
Greek
word
for
'form';
-eme
as in
'phoneme'
(
音素
)
means 'class of'). In view of word-
formation, the
morpheme
is
seen
as
'the
smallest
functioning
unit
in
the
composition of words' (Crystal 1985). S
yntactically
(
从句法上看
)
,
however,
a
morpheme
is
the
minimal
form
of
grammatical
analysis
< br>(
语法分析
)
. For
instance, each of the word-forms
studies,
studying, studied,
consists of the morpheme
study +
; the forms
-es
in
studies,
-ing
in
studying, -ed
in
studied
are
morphemes, which
express grammatical
concepts
(
语法概念
)
instead of deriving new
words (See Classifying Morphemes).
3.2
Morphsand Allomorphs
(
词素变体
)
Morphemes
are
abstract
units,
which
are
realized
in
speech
by
discrete units
(
具体单位
)
known as
morphs
(<
/p>
形素
)
.
'They are actual
spoken,
minimal carriers of meaning' (Bolinger and Sears
1981:43).
In other words the
phonetic or orthographic strings(
语音串或拼写
字串
)
or
segments
(
切分成分；节
)
which realize morphemes are
termed 'morphs' (Bauer 1983:15). The
morpheme is to the morph
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what a phoneme
(
音位
)
is to a phone
(
音素<
/p>
)
. Most morphemes are
realized by single morphs like
bird
,
tree
,
green ,
sad, want, desire,
etc. .
These
morphemes
coincide
(
巧合
)
with
words
as
they
can
stand by
themselves and function freely in a sentence.
Words of this
kind
are
called
mono-morphemic
words.
Some
morphemes,
however, are
realized by more than one morph according to their
position in a word. For instance, the
morpheme of plurality {-s} has
a set of
morphs in different sound context, e. g. in
cats
/s/, in
bags
/z/,
in
matches
/iz/. The alternates
(
作为替换的事物
)
/s/, /z/ and /iz/ are
three
different morphs. The same is true of the link
verb morpheme
{be}. Its past tense is
realized by two distinct orthographic forms
was
,
were,
each
of
which
happens
to
be
a
word-form,
realizing
{preterit} and
{singular}, and {preterit} and {plural}
respectively
and each has its own
phonetic form /woz/ or /w?:/. Therefore, both
was, were
and their phonetic
forms /woz/ and /w?: / are morphs (See
discussion in Bauer, p15).
An
allomorph
refers
to
a
member
of
a
set
of
morphs,
which
represent one
morpheme. Just as we class phones
(
音素
)
together as
allophones
(
音位变体
)
of
a
single
phoneme
(
音位
)
,
so
we
class
morphs
together
as
allomorphs
of
a
single
morpheme.
Take
the
plural
morpheme {-s} again. Phonetically, it is realized
by /s/, /z/,
/iz/, all of which are
English, many morphemes can
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have
more
than
one
allomorph,
particularly
those
freestanding
morphemes
which
are
functional
words
in
their
own
right.
Once
they occur in connected speech, they
may be realized by different
forms,
depending on whether they are accented or weakened
(Look
at the data in the table).
Morphem
e
{am}
{ was}
{have }
{would }
Allomorph
Strong
/aem/
/woz/
/haev/
/wud/
Weak
/?m/,
/m/
/W?Z/
/h?v/, /v/
/w?d/,
/?d/,
/d/
{he}
{his}
{for}
{to}
/hi:/
/hiz/
/fo:/
/tu:/
/i:/, /i/
/iz/
/f?/
/tu/, /t?/
Then
what is the difference between morphs and
allomorphs? The
relationship can be
illustrated by the diagram below.
Morpheme
{would}
morph
morph
morph
mor
ph
→
allomorph
/wud/
/w?d/
/?d/
/d/
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3.3
Classifying Morphemes
Morphemes
vary
in
function.
Accordingly,
we
can
classify
morphemes
into
several
general
categories:
free
versus
bound,
derivational
versus
inflectional, and lexical
versus
grammatical.
However, their boundaries are not as
clear-cut as they appear to be
due to
some overlapping
(
重叠
)
. For the sake of discussion, we
shall
define each type in terms of its
characteristics.
1. Free
versus Bound Morphemes
(
自由词素与
粘着词素
)
This
is
the
easiest
and
most
preferred
classification
in
morphological
studies,
discussed
in
Hatch
and
Brown
(1995),
Crystal
(1985),
Fromkin
and
Rodman
(1983),
Bauer
(1983),
Bolinger
and
Sears
(1981)
and
Matthews
(2000).
Morphemes
which
are
independent
of
other
morphemes
are
free.
These
morphemes have complete meanings in
themselves and can be
used as free
grammatical units in sentences.
They
are identical
with(
与……完全相同
)
words, for example,
man,
earth, wind, car
and
anger.
Morphemes
which cannot occur as separate words are bound.
They are so named because they are
bound to other morphemes
to form words
or to perform a particular grammatical
function.
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Bound morphemes are
chiefly found in derived words
(
< br>派生词
)
. Let
us
take
recollection, idealistic
and
ex-prisoner
for example. Each of
the
three
words
comprises
three
morphemes:
recollection
(re-
collect-ion) ,
idealistic
(ideal-ist-ic) ,
ex-prisoner
(ex- prison
-er). Of
the
nine
morphemes,
collect,
ideal
and
prison
can
stand
by
themselves and thus are free morphemes.
All the rest
re-, -ion , -ist,
-ic, ex-
and
-er
are bound as none of them are
freestanding units.
Free morphemes are
all roots, which are capable of being used as
words or as word-building elements to
form new words like
collect,
ideal, prison ,
whereas
bound morphemes consist of either roots or
affixes, most of which can be used to
create new words like
-dict- ,
-ced-
(
接近；去
)
, re-, -ion, -ist, -ic
and
ex-
(
前
)
.
But there
are a few
affixes which can only
indicate such grammatical concepts as tense,
aspect, number and case, for example,
the
-ing
in
watching, -er
in
easier, -s
in
books,
and
-ed
in
worked.
The
English
language
possesses
a
multitude
of
(
大量的
)
words
made up of merely
bound morphemes, e. g.
antecedent,
which can
be broken down
into
ante-, -ced-
and
-ent.
Among them,
-ced-
is a
root
meaning 'approach, go to',
ante-,
a prefix meaning 'before' and
-ent,
a noun suffix meaning
'a person, a thing', thus the whole word
antecedent
meaning
'something that goes before'
(
前例；前事；先
行词；祖先
)
.
These examples show clearly that bound morphemes
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include two types:
bound
root
(See Root, Stem, Base) and
affix.
2. Derivational versus Inflectional
Morphemes
Morphemes
which
are
used
to
derive
new
words
are
known
as
derivational
morphemes
(
派
生
词
素
)
because
when
these
morphemes
are
conjoined,
new
words
are
derived.
In
English,
derivatives and
compounds are all formed by such morphemes. For
example,
a
+
mor
+
ai
,
clear +
ance
,
Life
+
Like
and
homo +
gen
+
eous
are
results of such morphological processes.
Inflectional
morphemes
(
屈
折
词
< br>素
)
,
in
contrast,
indicate
the
syntactic relationships
between words and function as grammatical
markers. Inflectional morphemes are
confined to suffixes.
There is
the regular plural suffix
-s
(-es)
which is added to nouns such as
machines
,
fridges
,
desks
,
radios and
potatoes
; the same forms can
be added to verbs to indicate the
simple present for the third person
singular such as
likes
,
works
and
goes
; the
form
-'s
is used to denote
the possessive case of nouns such as
the children
'
s
library, the man
' s role
and
the mother-in-law' s
complaints;
the suffixes
-er, -est
are
usually
attached
to
simple
adjectives
or
adverbs
to
show
their
comparative
or
superlative
degrees
like
happ
ier
—
happiest
,
harder
—
hardest.
Apart from these, there is the past
tense marker
-ed
and
progressive
marker
-ing
added
to
verbs.
The
differences
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between
inflectional
and
derivational
morphemes
can
be
summarized
as follows (See Hatch and Brown, p266):
Inflectional
(1)Does
not
change
meaning
or
part
ofspeech ofthe stem
(2)
Indicates
syntactic
or
Derivational
(1)
Changes
meaning
or part
of
speech of the
stem.
(2)
Indicates
semantic
semantic
relationsbetween
relations within the word.
(3)
Occurs
with
only
some
members
of
a
class
of
different words in a
sentence.
(3)
Occurs
with
all
members
of
some
largeclass
of
morphemes.
(4)
Occurs
at
margins
of
words.
morphemes.
(4)
Occurs
before
any
inflectional suffixes added.
3. Content versus Grammatical
Morphemes
On a semantic and
syntactic basis, morphemes can fall into
content
and
grammatical
morphemes
(Traugott
and
Pratt
1980:90;
Bolinger
and
Sears,
pp66~70;
Hatch
and
Brown,
p267).
Content
morphemes are
lexical
morphemes which are used as we see
above
to derive new words, so also
known as
derivational
morphemes.
These morphemes,
whether free or bound, have a lexical content,
hence
the
name.
Grammatical
morphemes,
on
the
other
hand,
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function primarily as
grammatical markers. They encompass both
inflectional affixes and free morphemes
such as
in
,
and
,
do
,
have
,
they
,
-while
,
-where
,
but
and
that
,
which
are
traditionally
called
functional words.
3.4
Identifying
Morphemes(
词素的区分
)
Since
morphemes
are
the
minimal
distinct
units,
they
should
be
identifiable
by
their
forms,
meaning
and
distribution.
Generally
speaking, lexical morphemes are easy to
define:
Mono-morphemic:
land, sky
Double-morphemic:
chill + y, mis
+
take
Triple-morphemic:
anti + govern + ment, sports + man +
ship
Four-
morphemic
:un + friend + li + ness,
morph + olog( i) + cal + ly
Over-four-
morphemic:
inter + nation + al + iz(e)
+ ation
If the morphemes
are always consistent in form and meaning, there
should
be
no
difficulty
in
ide
ntification
(
区分
)
.
However,
there
is
often
mismatch
(
不
一
致
)
between
form
and
meaning.
Some
morphemes are identical
(
相同的
)
in form but different in meaning,
for
instance,
-er
in
teacher
,
clearer
and
eraser. -er
in
teacher
means
'one who', but
-er
in
clearer
indicates 'the comparative degree', and
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